Books

3 Savanna Blue Poetry by Peggy Zuleika Lynch, Carlyn Luke Reding, Glynn Monroe Irby, Edited by Susan Bright 3 Savanna Blue is a a rich, mixed-media stew that blends the voices of Lynch, Reding, and Irby, and spices them with photographs and graphics. The interweaving of poems, photographs, and graphics invites the reader to reconsider each text. Gary S. Rosin , Poet, Author of Sanding Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing), Chair of the Program Committee for the Houston Poetry Fest. This is an exquisite poetry book of the abstract and the concrete. The poems and the photographs combine in...

A Good Woman Dorothy Weil A Good Woman is the story of Mary Lou Friedman, a spunky eighty-five year old whose life slides into chaos when she is threatened by local hoodlums and her husband becomes terminally ill. As Mary Lou fights for her family and home, she revisits her past as a wild farm girl, a naive young bride, an inexperienced mother, and a mature woman discovering her sexuality. Throughout, she copes with the changing expectations and challenges faced by women of the twentieth century, the final hurdle being old age in a world where people live long but receive little respect....

By Sandra E. Drake Sandra Drake's provocative A Kind of Wrath offers a new take on the mixed-race experience in the relationship between Paula Kajiyama and Will Cawdry, set in contemporary multiracial, multifaith, multilingual Hawai'i. Like Kiana Davenport's Shark Dialogues , Drake's novel challenges traditional assumptions about race and sexuality, and demonstrates the way colonialism, violence, power and hope powerfully impact the experience of people of mixed race today. Michele Elam Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor English Department and Director, African & African American Studies...

By Catherine Underhill Fitzpatrick Catherine Fitzpatrick has used her keen reporter's eyes for detail and fashioned a sweeping saga of the wealthy Reinhardt family, St. Louis merchants who built a local retail empire over the course of a century... The characters vividly jump off the pages and pull you into their lives. Carol S. Cole , Former Features Editor, St. Louis Globe-Democrat An epic ... Writing it meant knowing vast amounts of information ... Many, many passages are strikingly beautiful, some scenes are memorable - so real they're painful to remember. Rose Marie Kinder , Editor...

A Mother Runs Through It Carolyn Walker A Mother Runs Through It, posing as a collection of humorous domestic essays, makes us smile with recognition, sometimes laugh out loud, at the travails of one person's ordinary life -- filled as it is with the usual frustrations, heartbreaks, and the extraordinary tragedies that happen to each of us. As we read Carolyn Walker's closely observed and tidily constructed prose pieces, we see our own lives and know the extent to which we can transcend our own sorrows to find grace. By book's end we realize we have read a long and thankful prayer. Gay Rubin...

By Ron Talney Visited by the hard weather of melancholy and harsh truth, the terrain of this collection fills with shadows and stone, sorrows and ash - its world broken by a daughter's violent death. But such seasons of pain are not relentless. In rich and memorable lines, Ron Talney gives us delight in vivid images, wisdom in striking tropes. Offering respite and solace, he creates from "...rocks and trees/the poems we need." Paulann Petersen Author of Bride of Narrow Escape and Kindle , Poet Laureate of Oregon With great talent, command of craft, enormous courage and emotional...

A Spirited Escape Barbara Johnson Fabulous book! I loved this story. It brought back to life that summer, my experiences at Holden (2002). Nancy A. Johnson, Registrar, Holden Village, WA Johnson has woven together some harsh but treasured experiences, cartoonishly alarming dreams, daytime musings and words of wisdom to fashion a tapestry of understanding and forgiveness. Lani Steele , International Educator, Poet, Fiction and Travel Writer How does a good, loving couple endure and triumph over a neighbor from hell who openly pledges to harass them till they die? You’ll share the tears, feel...

By Chad Prevost “A Walking Cliche Coins a Phrase is an utterly unique book of poems. Despite the subtitle, this is a book of poems, filled with true wit (strange things go on in this man’s head!), strong music, a stone blind love (the only kind of love that matters) of language, and a wild, wild heart.” Thomas Lux, author of God Particles “The road to psychic wholeness, Chad Prevost asks, is to ‘bury oneself in sweetness like a bee making Heaven in a fallen pear?’ In these marvelously inventive prose poems, Prevost does just that, chronicling the journey of a man facing the false dichotomy...

By Judith Austin Mills With the sprawling celebration of Walt Whitman and the meditative concentration of Mary Oliver, Accidental Joy is more than a poetic monologue—it is a personal epic. It is private prayer and public performance in one. Sitting down to read it feels like you're taking in a good bottle of wine: the flavors, highlights, and notes are diverse and complex, but they nonetheless create a unified flavor, a cohesive and balanced whole. — Allyson Whipple , author of We're Smaller Than We Think We Are Judith Austin Mills is a poet who wins poetry contests, some with very formal...

B y Stephanie Kaplan Cohen In these poems of a life well lived, Stephanie Kaplan Cohen shares feelings and observations most people choose to deny. She gracefully gives her reader permission to feel and become as authentic as these poems. This book of laughter, tears and wry insights is the work of a wise, wonderful and insightful poet in her prime. Linda Leedy Schneider Author of Through My Window: Poetry of a Psychotherapist What a pleasure it is to read Stephanie Kaplan Cohen's poetry. It has wit, poignancy, and remarkable craft. I look forward to reading more of this gifted poet's work. ...